Mark 1:40–45
40 And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” 41 Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” 42 And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43 And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, 44 and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” 45 But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.
Remember the big idea of this text is the reversal of the clean-unclean transaction. When Jesus comes into contact with an unclean person, instead of Jesus becoming unclean, he makes the unclean person clean. This is a huge shift in the storyline of Scripture and one that cannot be overstated. If you missed the sermon from Sunday be sure to listen to it.
However, today I want to pick up on another important theme expressed in this text. I wanted to talk about this on Sunday but likely would've created more confusion than clarity. I've had many conversation with people about this so I figured I needed to address it.
The man's question was surprisingly profound. This guy knew Jesus had the capability to heal him. He's been healing people and casting out demons all throughout Galilee. Now that he was in proximity to Jesus the only remaining question was: is he willing? This brings up the question: why do some people get healed and some do not? This is a huge topic that begins with a simple question and ends up at what is known as the problem of evil. You've likely come across it in some capacity. It basically goes something like this: If God is all powerful and good, how can there be so much suffering in the world. Since there is so much suffering, it is unlikely that God exists as the Christian faith describes him.
To scratch the surface into this discussion I want to bring up 2 false assumptions. First, the assumption that God owes us anything. God does not owe us good health. God does not owe us luxury and prosperity. God does not owe us life. If we want to get into the conversation of what God owes us, we may not like where it leads. Romans 3:23 says, "the wages (what is owed) of sin is death." Anything we receive apart from that is a gift of God—hence Scripture constantly imploring believers to thankfulness. This is a vital distinction to make for if we don't we will never understand the gospel.
The second assumption we make in this conversation is that the suffering we see cannot be purposeful. Just because we can’t think of a reason for God allowing suffering doesn’t mean he doesn’t have one.
Tim Keller offers a helpful response to give when asked about a possible reason for suffering. “It may be that someone has a very strong desire for something and is able to obtain this thing, but does not act on this desire—because he has reasons for not doing so that seem to him to outweigh the desirability of the thing . . . [so] God might have reasons for allowing evil to exist that, in his mind, outweigh the desirability of the non-existence of evil.” (Tim Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering ,176)
To give a silly example: If you come across your favorite donut while walking through the grocery store after making a new year's resolution to get in shape. You have the desire to purchase it (donuts taste delicious). You have the means to purchase it (enough money with you). But there is a higher purpose that you have willed (health), and in your desire to achieve that purpose you don’t purchase the donut. That's a silly example that I'm sure has holes in it so don't take it too far.
As another example, parents inflict a mild form of suffering on their children for a higher purpose probably every day. We call it discipline. We give timeouts; we removal privileges, etc. All good discipline has a purpose. Your kids don’t see it in the midst of it but one day they will likely thank you for it. This isn't to say that all of suffering is due to God's discipline. This is simply to say that there could be a higher purpose to it.
So to say that because we can't think of a reason for God to allow suffering the way we see it all around is certainly shortsighted and is not a good argument to disprove the existence of God.
Moving ahead, the short answer to a very complicated question lies in the different senses of God’s will. It has many different designations but a similar principle: His preceptive will and decretive will, His perfect will and permissive will, or, to oversimplify, His wish will and His will will.
The distinction can easily be seen in the life of Jesus. Scripture is clear that it was God's will for Jesus to go to the cross and die (see Acts 2:23). Yet in the process he was falsely accused, horribly abused, and ultimately, unjustly put to death. Jesus didn't just conquer evil. He conquered evil through evil. So did God will for those evils to be done?—yes and no. In his preceptive will he didn't will false testimony because that goes against his commandment to not lie. Yet in his decretive will he decreed that this should happen to bring about his higher purpose of salvation to the world.
In the example of why someone is not healed when we pray for them. The simple answer is God wants to (preceptive/perfect); God is able to; but God didn’t want to (decretive/permissive).